


where my armor ends

by dalniente



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Entrapta/Hordak if you're looking for it, Gen, Post-Canon, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, please suggest other tags if you feel they'd be appropriate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalniente/pseuds/dalniente
Summary: Hordak's old coping mechanisms aren't much help while he waits for the other shoe to fall.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 54





	where my armor ends

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post on tumblr](https://iztarshi.tumblr.com/post/619997796355981312/entrapdaknation-iztarshi-i-think-i-find-it) that mentioned how Hordak seems quiet and submissive on Prime's ship, but snarling and defensive in the Fright Zone, and explained that both of those likely come from a place of fear, and wondered how would Hordak react after the end of the series? Snarling or quiet? Personally, I think the answer might be both! Title from [Pluto by Sleeping At Last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaYWsNW5ew). (link goes to YouTube; does not open in new tab)

It's a process. Hordak starts off subdued, quiet, because that's his tried-and-true survival technique for when he's under the control of someone more powerful than he is, who almost certainly would not care if he died. It's a headspace he knows; he barely needs to try, at first. He keeps his mouth shut and he keeps his head down. Waiting for these princesses and their queen to figure out what to do with him, what punishment they're going to hand him. It's only a matter of time.

But they keep not hurting him. Even when he slips up and forgets to be appropriately submissive. It has to be a trick; it has to be; after all the shit he pulled and the people he killed and the towns he razed to the ground? This is definitely some kind of trick. Hordak is pretty sure he can keep playing their game for however long he needs to (even though false meekness is more exhausting to maintain than the snappish defensiveness he learned to wield in the Fright Zone), can keep going as long as it takes for them to show their hand—but they keep not hurting him. It keeps not being a trick.

He begins to slip more frequently, begins to show his proverbial (and sometimes literal) teeth more often. It's accidental, at first, but he keeps not being punished for it—even though he sees his captors exchange meaningful looks when it happens, he _sees_ them—they're going to tire of this game, soon. He knows they are. They can't keep toying with him forever; even Prime would be bored by now.

But then, Prime had other clones to draw his attention. Hordak is alone. There are other clones here, too, of course, stumbling through the world, but Hordak is the only one who was cut free of the hive long enough to develop something like his own will. And he used his will to attempt to destroy everything these people love, so—regardless of how he thinks now, regardless of how he feels now, they're going to tire of playing with him and then they will break him and throw him away. Yes? That's how this goes. That's what happens when powerful people finish with their toys.

They keep not hurting him.

Eventually he can't hold the meek facade anymore. Can't put himself in the submissive headspace. He tries, but he's too unsettled, too uncertain; his mask slips away too quickly now, so finally he gives up and just leans into the rage. Fine! If it's a game they want, Hordak is game to play; he's sick of this, wants to end it. So he stops trying for meekness, starts reaching for spitting snarling defense instead. Starts lashing out physically as well as verbally, eventually. 

Entrapta is the most confusing thing he's ever seen. She is completely unflappable. She cannot be flapped. The others snap back at him, the others do react and shout at him, sometimes, but Entrapta just rolls her eyes and goes and hangs out on the ceiling, tinkering with her project of the day and chatting at him where Hordak can't reach her until he's done snapping. This is just familiar enough to be comforting, but still too strange for him to be comfortable.

(He missed her. He's too on edge to let her get close again, physically, but—he did miss her. Is glad to see her. Is desperately, clenchingly glad she's all right.)

Catra seems, sometimes, to be in a similar place as Hordak, mentally. Adora is her weakness, always has been, but now Catra sometimes almost seems to believe Adora wants her to stay. Hordak tells her no, hisses _it's not possible, all you've done, all we've done, this is not real and you are not safe and_ —

—Catra stops coming to see him, after a while. She's stops being part of his guard rotation. Hordak feels—badly? About that? But fuck it, oh well.

They keep not hurting him.

It goes: trained meekness, then false meekness, and then he has trouble maintaining that so he gives into his rage, and. They mostly leave him alone, then. He's left alone in a comfortable room with a nice bed with pillows, with books, with high rafters he can't reach but Entrapta can, and—it has a _balcony_ , for crying out loud. It has a _fountain_.

Okay, seriously. What the fuck is all this. It's— _are_ they going to tire of him? Of course, of course they are, but when? He can't force them to end it, so—do they want something from him? That seems plausible, but what could they possibly want from him? Catra and Scorpia can give them information; Entrapta can give them tech; what do these princesses need with a failed clone?

They keep not asking. And they keep not tiring of him. They continue to guard him. They talk to him, occasionally, some of them, whether he replies or not. Until he lashes out, and then they snap back and go away again.

It's baffling.

Hordak tries to cling to his rage, but rage is as exhausting as false meekness, in its way. Eventually that gives way as well, which he hates, because then all he has, _all_ he has, is fear. Fear of—he isn't even sure what, but—when he breaks, when he fails, they'll—kill him, hurt him, burn his fragile skin and break his brittle bones and scour his fractured, selfish mind and—he wishes they would just get it over with, already. And then he hates himself for daring to wish for anything personal, because a good clone would wait patiently. A good clone would accept its fate. 

(Hordak is not a good clone. Hordak is not a good _anything_. Hordak definitely deserves whatever is coming; he just wishes he knew what it was, and—oops, there he goes again with the wishing.)

And it's worse, now, because he's starting to understand why Catra was having trouble. Sometimes he almost feels—

—not _safe_ , never _safe_ , but—

—he feels like he might not need to sleep with one eye open? Maybe? Sometimes? But he starts to relax and then panic grips him, and after panic comes rage again, but it's directed inward, now. Because what is he, a child? Scared of the dark? Hordak has never been a child, but he's seen enough of them to know what childish fear looks like. He hates himself for that, too.

And on top of this, adding injury to insult: his body is failing, again. It barely holds him upright without his armor. He cannot afford to show weakness in front of his captors, cannot be weak like this, all his flaws on display; they really should just get rid of him.

They give him his armor back, instead. The exoskeletal set Entrapta built for him, unasked. They must have found it somewhere on Prime's ship. Hordak thinks this will help shield him from the panic, help him feel more settled, but it doesn't—he just winds up rolled into a ball in his armor now, curled up on his bed with his arms over his head, hyperventilating into the space between his stomach and his legs.

He isn't safe. Cannot relax. Cannot afford to relax, armor or no armor. This has been going on for far too long.

Fuck. He's. Losing his mind. Are they—so, wait— _is_ he safe? Maybe? He starts to wonder this a few times but then the panic grips and chokes him and then he's in a ball again, and that's _great_ , just _fantastic_.

(It keeps not hurting. The panic is painful and leaves him spent and shaking when it passes, but there's no external punishment for giving into it. He keeps bracing himself, waiting, but it never comes. It keeps not hurting.)

He considers ending the game, himself, instead of waiting for his captors to do it for him. He has a balcony, he has gravity, he has a fountain and rope to tie his curtains; he has—he—has options. If he wants them. But Hordak is a fighter, first and foremost, fear be damned. He did not give in when he was cut free of his lord and brethren and he will not give up now. He's been afraid before.

"You don't have to be scared, you know," Entrapta says, at one point. She looks wholly focused on the little whirring thing in her hands. "Think about it! I betrayed them and they still like me. At least I think they do. Probably."

This is. True. They took Entrapta back, they brought Scorpia and Catra into their fold; from what Catra says, they did something similar with Shadow Weaver after Hordak cast her out, so—so maybe—maybe he's—

—panicking _and_ angry now, oh joy! Well done, Hordak, you useless pointless waste of fucking space! Can't even control your own mind. Never could. Flawed to begin with. Built into him, really.

"Hordak?" says Entrapta's voice, from a long way off. She sounds like she's speaking to him from underwater. "Oh. Oh, okay. Um. Aw, crap. Um…there, there?" Something pats his shoulder. Hordak flinches, snarls at himself for it. "AaaaaI'mReallyNotGoodAtThis, um—" Her voice recedes. "Um, Perfuma?" she yells, somewhere else. "He's—he's doing the thing? The thing you said he would probably do? He—your projections were correct but I don't know how to—crap, um, okay—you just hang tight, I'll go find her."

That's when the real work begins. That's when he's called to _talk_ with them, finally.

They really aren't going to hurt him, Glimmer says. Yes, it's tempting; no, we're not going to. Hordak can almost believe this, sort of, terrifying though it is. If they were going to hurt him, probably they would have done so ages ago.

As for what they want—

"Entrapta says you're good with tech," Adora tells him. Hordak glances over at Entrapta, who gives him four thumbs up: her organic hands and the ones she briefly coils out of her organomechanical hair. "We could use your help in the Fright Zone. We want to get that sorted out before we tackle Beast Island—Etheria's magic is having a hard time…sticking? sort of? in the Fright Zone. Entrapta has a couple ideas about why the land isn't—"

"I'm working on drafting a sufficiently nuanced working hypothesis," Entrapta chimes in. Her hands are busy again. "But I think it's going to take several distinct experiments; I have lots of data on your old tech but not much on how it interacts with Etheria."

"To fix what was broken," Hordak says, looking at Adora. He frowns. "What I destroyed."

"And I miss my old lab partner," says Entrapta. "You have good ideas! We made a good team!"

"You would trust me with this?" Hordak asks.

"Absolutely not," says Mermista, but Adora just shrugs.

"Do you trust us?" she says.

Hordak looks away. He's starting to, in spite of everything. "I am a clone," he says. He clenches his fists, presses them against his legs, grits his teeth. "And a broken one, at that. Horde Prime—"

"Is dead," Adora cuts him off. Entrapta looks at him, eyebrows pinching in her rendition of a scowl, and he remembers her voice again, telling him his flaws were beautiful. "And you're your own person. You always were. And I don't know that I'd call you _broken_. What do you want to do?"

Hordak stares at her. What does _he_ —

He still feels uncertain, frightened even, and he knows his rage is crouching inside him, still, waiting to strike. But. He wants—

"I destroyed it," he says, feeling numb. "I—apologize. For that. I am sorry. It. It was wrong. But—"

"Few things are ever destroyed past the point of being worth saving," Adora tells him, both her voice and her gaze steady. "We can rebuild, if we try. So."

Hordak stares harder, trying to process this.

"I want to help," he says, finally. "If I can be of use in the Fright Zone…I will do what I can."

"Yaaay!" Entrapta cheers, then hoists herself up and grabs his shoulder, yanks him sideways against her body with her arm around him. "See? I told you he wants to trust people! I told you he would help! You're doing great," she adds, grinning at him as she retreats again. "This is progress! Oh! And we can dye your hair! Do you want to? The white just isn't _you_."

"I," Hordak says, shaken. "I—I want—yes? Yes. The white isn't. Me."

"Don't let her put words in your mouth," Catra snaps, finally speaking up from the doorway where she's been leaning with her arms crossed over her chest, but—

"She isn't," Hordak says, startling himself. "She—she is not. Wrong. About that."

This is—a conversation? With no stakes? But he's going to give the wrong answer, soon; he's been successful thus far but he's going to fail and he's going to fall and then they're going to—

Not hurt him. They said. They want to but they won't.

(Hordak needs to feel useful in order to stay calm, for now. The flower one, Perfuma, points this out. It chafes to hear, but it's probably true. Explains a lot, actually, about what his head has been doing recently. She's tentatively willing to work with him on that, she says, and Hordak isn't sure what _work with him_ entails but it…might not be bad?)

He isn't safe, but apparently he's not going to be punished for his failures and all his glaring flaws. As wild as that sounds. The Fright Zone is worth saving, and it sounds like they want to try with Beast Island, too, eventually, and—and if Hordak helps, if he swallows his fear and his shredded pride, if he returns to what he tore down and learns how to restore it—if he can save it—will he also be worth saving? _Is_ he also worth saving?

Some of these women seem to think so. It would be nice to agree with them.

Someday, Hordak thinks. There's a thing inside him that feels lighter, a little bit, sort of hopeful. Someday. Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> I've only watched the series once, so apologies if anything in here is flat-out wrong or if any of the voices seem off! I really need to give it another watch. Good stuff.
> 
> (a couple small edits after i posted because typos & formatting, whoops)


End file.
